Norma Tanega was one of those rare artists who seemed to live slightly sideways from the rest of the world—in the best way. A painter, musician, poet, and total original, she wrote Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog in 1966, a folk-pop gem so charmingly odd it instantly set her apart. Tanega mixed jangly guitars with beat-poet whimsy and a voice that sounded like it wandered in from another universe, barefoot and curious.
Her work never chased trends; it made its own lane. Queer, fiercely independent, and uninterested in the music industry’s rules, Tanega created songs that felt like secret friends for anyone who didn’t fit the mold. The album’s surreal title track—about a dog who acts like a cat, or maybe the other way around—is practically a manifesto for misfits.
